The Devil Went Down to Remnant
by rennok
Summary: Luke Barrow and his two AI's, Fletcher and Scorch, make up the fiercest mercenary team in the galaxy. For the right price, he brings down hellfire on anyone and anything. And then he arrives on Remnant.
1. Chapter 1

Luke's foot hit the floor for a split second before he forced himself off it again, flying into the air with the power of his augmented legs. He slammed a new cartridge into the R201, his trusty, standard issue assault rifle. Narrowly dodging another swipe of the beast's claw, he brought the R201 to eye level and pulled the trigger, allowing the weapon to burst fire. The weapon buried bullet after bullet into the beast's head as it roared in fury and attacked again.

Lucas Barrow served as a mercenary for hire, no attachments to anything or anyone besides his two AIs. He had been called in for a pretty simple search and destroy mission. Something big had been tearing up a section on a planet, and his contractors wanted it dead. It was probably messing with their equipment or something, Luke didn't really care. He got paid, and that was enough for him. He took his large ship, but elected to leave his titan, Scorch, in the hangar. He could always call it when he needed to. The computer pinpointed the monster and deployed a small transport ship, which carried him a few hundred feet above the beast before he dropped to get the first strike.

His reminiscing was cut short as a long claw caught him in the side, impaling him and throwing him into a wall. Through all the pain, Luke could feel his nanobots repairing his internals systems, which were undoubtedly a mess. As an elite soldier, he had managed to afford the highest quality bots and it was paying off now. Almost as soon as his bones had broken and his skin had torn apart, his body was stitched back together. The bots also inhibited his sense of pain, allowing him to continue to fire.

The beast was a massive, black as night brute that reminded him of a gorilla. Luke could see why people wanted it removed. The only part that didn't remind him of the night sky was the white mask it wore over its face and burning red and yellow eyes, which appeared to glow and flicker like a live fire. His body fully repaired, Luke shoved another clip into his gun and fired again. Finally, the uranium-depleted rounds managed to find a home in it's brain, and as it roared in pain, Luke was able to slip a frag grenade into it's mouth. Its mouth clamped shut, and then it's head promptly exploded.

The goliath dissolved into dust as Luke slowed his pace and hit the floor. At last, all of the black smoke dissipated, and only a faint, glowing, red crystal was left on the soft forest floor. Luke picked it up with a look of curiosity on his face, tapping his arm gauntlet.

"Fletcher, any chance you can tell me what this is?"

On cue, the computer voice came to life in his head and a soft, blue light absorbed the red crystal.

"Unidentifiable substance, Pilot. I recommend bringing it aboard for further analysis. I am sending a transport shuttle to your location, unless you prefer to blow your brains out and reclone up here."

"Affirmative. I'll take the shuttle."

Ten minutes, Luke was sitting alone on the shuttle, flying back to his ship, "The Fool". His helmet was off, allowing him to breathe into the ship. Despite only being nineteen years of age, Luke's hair was silver, likely caused from the stress of his occupation. However, he still wore it in a shaggy mop over his head that he could slick back when he needed to don his helmet. His face still appeared youthful, but his scars that dotted his face and body spoke of years of combat experience.

The transport docked in The Fool, and he stepped off and strode through the empty ship to the lab. The Fool was small by most standards, but Luke refused to allow any living presences onto it besides himself and his two AIs - Fletcher, the primary AI controller of everything on The Fool, and Scorch, the AI that ran the massive robot that currently sat dormant in the hangar.

Luke slid the crystal into an analyzer before wandering over to the kitchen. The Fool was equipped with a lab, a hangar, a launch zone, a kitchen, an armory, a common room, a command room, and a bedroom. In the lab and armory, mini drones tirelessly scrapped old rounds and harvested from planets to build anything he could need - everything from one more bullet for an assault rifle to an entirely new mech when Scorch got destroyed. Plugging some headphones into his ears, Luke made his way to the command room and plotted out his course to his next job - IMC units were terrorizing a free planet, and Luke was going to go fuck them up. He finalized the route and fell asleep on a nearby couch.

He was woken up by Fletcher.

"Pilot Barrow, we may have a problem."

He looked out the large window over the lush planet underneath him. Luke's pilot suit allowed him to survive on almost any planet, but not having to use those capabilities was always pleasant. The thing preventing him from being happy was the fact that the planet he was supposed to be headed to was a desert planet.

"So we took a pit stop. I don't know why, but I don't see why this is a problem." Luke yawned.

Fletcher replied with, if he wasn't an AI, might be interpreted as annoyance mixed with fear. "Because I can't get us out. That crystal you brought back is pulling us towards the planet, and while I don't believe we will crash, the jump engines are refusing to cooperate."

"So what you're telling me is we are stuck here."

"In theory, we could use the manual engines and try to get out of the pull. However, I have calculated the amount of time that would take and-"

"How long."

"Seven thousand, five-hundred, eighty-nine years and two standard months. However, I have detected signs of life on the planet. Whether it is intelligent remains to be seen."

Luke sighed and shoved his helmet back on and trudged towards the hangar.

"Then let's go meet the locals."

Explosions echoed around the students. The white fang had brought in a large amount of Grimm, and were launching their assault on Beacon. Pyrrha had failed to keep Cinder from the Fall maiden's power, but her friends had kept her from chasing Cinder up the tower. It went against every one of her principles, but she knew she would only be putting them in more danger if she went and tried to play the hero.

Pyrrha threw her shield into another Grimm, narrowly saving Jaune again. A massive Grimm snarled at her. It was easily the size of a building, and the teams were too scattered with fighting and helping people to be able to focus on it. Pyrrha contemplated her imminent demise when she heard the roar of engines above her. It should have been impossible though. Why would an Atlas ship be flying directly into the heart of battle?

Rather than landing though, a single figure jumped and began to fall several hundred feet. Pyrrha braced herself to hear the inevitable crunch of it's legs as it hit the pavement. Instead, it extended it's arm, pointed at the biggest grimm, while screaming "DIBS!". Immediately, a rope fired from it, latched onto the Grimm, and pulled the figure towards it. It anchored onto the massive gorilla-like Grimm, reached under, pulled out some sort of rifle, and began emptying bullets into the Grimm's neck. The Grimm thrashed and flailed, but the figure stayed attached. Finally, it went to slam it's back into a building when the figure grappled to the opposite side of the street. It cut off the grapple and hit the wall and began running. Sideways. It pushed off, a small flash of light from the figure's strange backpack gave it another aerial boost, and it continued to fire. Its furious eyes turned back towards Pyrrha, who had been watching it all, having cleared out the rest of the Grimm. She braced herself and stepped to throw her shield when the figure dropped next to her.

"DON'T YOU DARE! I GOT DIBS!" it-he yelled, swatting her shield down. He took off again, running at insane speeds as he continued to fire. It raised a massive hand to crush him, and he immediately grabbed something circular from his best, cranked his arm back, and ran straight for the Grimm. It's hand slammed the ground and the figure slid and wrenched his arm forward, launching the circular object towards it, nailing it straight between the eyes. A blinding flash and several arcs of lighting blinded the Grimm as he jumped up and firmly planted his feet into it's mouth. He forced down and started throwing all sorts of stuff from his belt into the Grimm before grappling away, next to Pyrrha. She was dumbstruck. He was so fast, but more than that, he never stopped moving.

"Heya." said the figure.

"... Hi." replied a dumbstruck Pyrrha.

"Watch the fireworks."

Before she could get another word out, the Grimm's body exploded. Everywhere. It was kinda disgusting. Pyrrha couldn't even address him before he was sprinting away again. Just as well, Pyrrha had to take care of her teammates.

"Flashy as always, Pilot." Came Fletcher's disapproving voice.

"Oh hush Fletcher."

"You used that trick twice in a row."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"On your map I've pinged another location, where there appear to be a number of other titans, or possibly reapers. It's hard to tell."

"Stim?" Luke's voice came through the comm hopefully. Stimming allowed him to run at twice his normal speed for a short time, but taxed his body.

"No."

"Fiiiiiine" grumbled Luke as he raced towards the signal. Upon arrival, he spotted not three, not four, but five Reapers, or as he learned others called them, Atlesian Knights. He saw some of the children there, only his age, had already gone through three of them, but they were all looking pretty beat and they weren't recovering at an acceptable speed.

"Fletcher, bring in Scorch."

"Yes, Pilot."

Luke chucked a shining beacon, a marker to Fletcher onto the ground as he stimmed. One of the robots had it's fist raised, intending to punch one of the students and probably pulverize them. He was easily running at around 60mph while stimmed, and it thankfully was fast enough. He launched into the air, extended one leg, and let it slam into the extended arm of the bot, forcing it away from the unfortunate boy. The timer on the interior of his helmet showed it was almost go time.

Animal-like men and women gathered too, murderous intent all too obvious. Twenty seconds on Scorch. Time to stall.

"Good evening, Ladies and Gentlemen! I am Luke Barrow!" He yelled with a sweeping bow. Everyone, both the adults and children looked at him like he was crazy. Probably because he had just shown up and kicked a robot, but still.

"I am a Pilot and mercenary for hire, and I like to think I am rather skilled at my job."

The adults pressed in, weapons raised. Three seconds. He pointed his left hand, his grapple hand, to the sky. If he could aim it just right, he could grab Scorch mid air and be inside before he hit the ground.

"In fact, I am so skilled, I have earned a nickname across… everywhere!"

"Doesn't matter! All you're going to be called is dead!" One of the aggressors, probably the leader yelled back at him. His red hair flared up, and his crimson blade pointed at Luke. He looked like an edgy teenager who spent too much time trying to be edgy.

"Rude. Didn't even ask what my nickname was…"

"I DON'T CARE! I JUST WANT HUMANS TO SUFFER FOR WHAT THEY'VE DONE!"

Definitely edgy.

Fletcher's voice chimed over his radio.

"Dropping now, Pilot."

Luke grinned under his mask.

"They call me 'Diablo". And he fired the gun.

The hellfire and terror that followed was incredible. Scorch was a titan that stood at least 40 ft tall. It was armed with a fire grenade launcher, a thermite launcher, two flammable gas canisters that it could shoot, and a heat shield that melted all of the pathetic bullets they attempted to fire at it. Most of the smart ones ran, both the children and adults. The rest tried to fight. The rest burned. All except one. Scorch's hand extended and grabbed the man who yelled earlier, who he later identified as Adam Taurus, terrorist extraordinaire. Luke's voice spoke through the robot.

"I don't know who you are, and I don't care. But tell your friends, your family, your enemies, hell, tell the whole world about today. Tell them not to fuck with Diablo." He threw the man to the side and stomped through the ruined city, leaving ash and smolder behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

The fall of Beacon was characterized by a few select events according to Ozpin. First, his death at the hands of the new fall maiden, Cinder Fall. He had fought her all the way to the roof when Ms. Rose ran up, trying to help. Upon witnessing him get shot in the chest, she awakened to her silver-eyes power.

Second, despite freezing the massive Grimm dragon, Beacon tower still fell and communications across the world were cut or damaged.

Third, a new party entered the scene and exited just as quickly, leaving fire, terror, and the scent of burning flesh behind him. It appeared as though he had commandeered some secret Atlas technology, and then used it to cook everything in his path. Reports of this being were quickly surfacing all across Remnant, praising his skill with a variety of weapons and conveying the pure terror as it went about its work. Ozcar set his head in his hands. He was unsure of the location of any other maidens, and he was in a new body that was woefully unprepared for the fight that lay ahead.

"I wasn't your first choice, I get that. But can you please be quiet? You're making my head hurt." Mumbled the boy who Ozpin was inhabiting.

"Sorry, Oscar. I don't mean to be cruel or rude, but events are in motion, and they are not good."'

The couches that Ozcar sat on at Haven academy were surprisingly comfortable, but it did little to ease the feeling of unease in others. They should feel happy. Team RWBY had reunited with Team JNPR, the White Fang had been defeated, and the relic was "safe" in the hand(s) of Ms. Xiao Long. Yet even as they ate dinner and chatted, there was an unmistakable edge of dread that creeped into the room. The conversation gradually died, and there was awkward silence among all ten people in the room. Then suddenly, just like the conversation, the silence was killed by Ruby, who stood up and made a brief announcement.

"I'm going to go for a walk."

Luke splayed himself out over one of the couches on _The Fool_ , picking leftover shards of Grimm spikes from his body, then trying and failing to throw them into the nearby garbage bin. His suit had pushed out all of the big shards, but the small ones were much easier removed manually. His helmet lighlighted onto another one just as he tossed another bloody spike on the floor. He had been doing freelance work for a while. People here didn't know what Pilots were, so he simply took the next closest title - huntsman. It wasn't particularly difficult to dodge all questions about himself, his past, his titan, etc when people were too terrified to ask. Luke grit his teeth and threw another spike onto the floor when Fletcher's voice chimed into his helmet.

"You do realize you're going to be cleaning those up, correct?"

"Yes _mother_."

His flesh instantly sealed over every wound as he finally threw the last spike successfully into the garbage bin.

"Aside from speaking about your terrible cleanliness habits, your missions have been very successful. Well done."

"What do you want, Fletcher?"

Fletcher sounded hurt.

"Nothing, Pilot. I merely wished to congratulate you on a job well done."

"I prefer my jobs medium rare."

"You know what I mean, Barrow."

The missions hadn't been difficult. Search and destroy, mostly. Find the big monster, put a few bullets through it's head, rinse and repeat. Once he had gotten a request to scare off some bandits. One fight and they had had enough.

Luke lazily scrolled through his requests and picked one out. Technically, they weren't his requests. But it wasn't hard for Fletcher to get into the database of every request made, and with the power of _The Fool_ , Luke could reach just about any one of them. He had come to realize these people didn't take UC, or Universal Credits. They wanted something called Lien. One guy even had the audacity to kick Luke out of the bar because he didn't have this worthless paper currency.

Finally he found an interesting one. A large bounty had been placed on a young girl's head. She was maybe 17, with dark hair, eyes the color of molten silver, and a red cloak. No explenation given. This kind of job was meant for thugs and bandits, not the refined and preachy huntsmen he had met. Then he looked at the reward. From what Luke and Fletcher had managed to piece together, it was A LOT of money. Only one problem - he had no idea where she was. And with all his capabilities to run forever at high speeds, fly around the world in the blink of an eye and more, he couldn't simply find one person on this large planet.

"Fletcher, start running facial recognition on her. I want to go wander."

"Facial recognition on what, sir?"

"Everything."

Even though Fletcher didn't have a face, Luke could still see the look of shock, disgust, and displeasure in Fletcher's voice as he stepped into one of the launch pods. Luke had discovered pretty quickly that his transport ship drew too much attention from everyone, so he took one man pods that would launch him at high velocities towards a destination of his choosing. Granted, it was difficult to get back, but he had pulled it off before. He cloaked his suit and opted for a simple jacket and pants, so as to not stand out. At random, he had selected a place just outside of somewhere called "Haven". It appeared to be a big town, full of interesting people - or so he hoped. Even though he didn't want a crew, it didn't mean Luke didn't want company at all. He felt the pod shudder with the force of being launched, and then a few seconds later, it hit the ground hard. He climbed out and the pod disintegrated, leaving no evidence of his arrival other than… a massive crater. Luke brushed off the jacket that he totally didn't loot from one of the bandits and made his way to the town. Some restaurants would still be open at this time of night, and he was hoping to sample some of the local cuisine when he bumped into someone.

"Sorry, sorry!" Exclaimed the high-pitched voice.

The someone was definitely female, had a rather high-pitched voice, and was quite shorter than Luke, who stood at a solid 6'2". This someone also had short, dark hair, pure silver eyes, and was wearing… a red cloak.

"Fletcher, run the scanner."

"Are you talking to me? My name's Ruby Rose, not 'Fletcher".

Fletcher's voice chimed in Luke's earpiece.

"100% match, Pilot. You already have full stun equipment ready, as the contract asked for her alive. I'll be sending a transport shuttle to where you first dropped in, but it is up to you to get there. It will be cloaked so as not to draw any attention."

"Gotcha. Thanks, Fletcher."

"Sir, is it really a good idea to be kidnapping a child? Your policy has always been to avoid hurting children in any way."

"For all we know, its a worried mother."

"We both know that's not true, Pilot.". Fletcher's voice had lost all its mirth, and was unusually cold.

"Then how about we figure it out? I'm curious as to who would be paying that much money for an unremarkable kid like this."

The target's voice but into the conversation again.

"Are you ok, mister? You're kinda talking to yourself. Also, did you say something about paying for a kid?"

Luke sighed and placed a palm onto his face while sliding the other to his hip, mumbling to Fletcher, "I messed that up big-time, didn't I?"

Her eyes were wide as she realized she was probably dealing with a crazy man.

"Um… sir… there's a hospital not too far away from here. If you're not feeling well, I could show you how to get there."

Finally, Luke's hand found purchase on the stun knuckes he had hidden under his jacket.

"Sorry, kiddo. But I gotta get paid."

He lashed out at her, feeling his arm buzz as the electricity connected. However, instead of collapsing like most people would, she fought through and leapt away. In a flash, her previously-empty hands were holding a massive red and black scythe. Luke's eyes widened as he activated his earpiece, allowing his helmet to materialize and mask his face while he mumbled to himself

"Well, I wasn't expecting that."

She then threw herself at him at a borderline insane speed, slicing through the air. He narrowly dodged as his jumppack kicked into full gear, boosting him away from the slash.

"Dear God kid!"

Before Luke could even go for a second attack, she was already sprinting behind him, towards the large building. Luke activated the jump-pack and gave chase. She was a blur of red flowing through the streets like a river, but if she was a river, then Luke was a bird of prey, effortlessly soaring above her. The jump-pack let him run effortlessly on the side of walls for a short time. When it ran out of charge, he would jump to another wall. In that time, it would recharge and let him continue to run. The city was too crowded for him to fire loud shots, so he was trying to hit this moving target with a silenced pistol - not the best for when both the shooter and target are moving at high speeds. At last, she threw herself into a building, with Luke hot on her tail.

"Sir, that building has nine other heat-signatures in it. I recommend against chasing her into an unknown building."

Luke was not happy that he had missed his quarry.

"Then it's nine more bodies onto my kill-count."

Instead of going through the front door, Luke leapt as high as his jump-pack would allow him before sending his grapple to the floor. Extending his leg, he went straight through the roof, crushing it and landing on someone. Immediately, weapons began flying as he ducked and wove around the weapons, sending out shock blasts when he could get them in. His helmet blocked out almost all of their noise - he had learned to do so after going against a particularly nasty Grimm who had blown out both his eardrums in less than a second. No one fired a shot yet, but the room was already wrecked with the massively oversized weapons they were swinging around.

They came to a standstill, each party on one side of the room. In front of Luke stood a hammer, a sword and shield, a sword and spear, two knife-guns, a rapier, a boxer, a smaller sword, a cane, a whip,and a greatsword. Luke had some stun-knuckles, his R201 assault rifle, two sonar knives, two frag-grenades, six arc-grenades, five firestars, one electric smoke grenade, a silenced pistol, a hand-cannon known as the Wingman-Elite, and a shotgun with the power to blow through buildings, known as the Mastiff. Unfortunately, Luke did not have eighteen-million hands to wield all of these weapons at once. Wait a minute.

Luke hissed into his comm with Fletcher, who was frantically running calculations on how he was best going to survive this fight "You said there were nine other signatures here not counting the quarry, so why the fuck are there eleven people here?!"

"You think I know?!" replied the obviously stressed AI

One of the older men stepped forward, greatsword raised high.

"Who are you, and what do you want with my niece?"

Luke may have been terrible at most social situations, but he could read this one. He put the knife and pistol he had out back onto his belt. He then took the one smoke grenade he had and placed it on the back of his hand before raising both into the air.

"Listen man, I'm just here for a paycheck."

"Wait!" The redhead of the group yelled, putting away her weapons and walking up the Luke, who's knees were now on the floor.

"You're that guy from Beacon, right?"

"I do like bacon, but I prefer pork belly."

The man with the greatsword kicked Luke's stomach, snarling "Now's not the time for jokes, kid. Who are you, and what do you want?"

He really made it all to easy to be a smart-ass.

"I'm Luke Barrow, and I want some dinner."

"Then go get some dinner and leave us alone."

"Well, I have to pay for dinner. And you see, I'm kind of broke at the moment."

Another boot to the head.

"I'm going to give you one more chance, kid."

As quiet as he could go, Luke mumbled "I don't want to talk to the scary old man." in his most childish and scared voice.

After the redhead repeated this to the group, the rest of the kids, without the red girl, walked over. He was disarmed and wounded. It really was too easy.

He let the smoke grenade fall and pulled out the mastiff from underneath his jacket, blowing away the red-eyed man and firing into the red of them. Luke heard the sound of the man hitting the wall with a satisfied thud as he pulled the trigger several more times. Once the shotgun was exhausted, he tossed it aside and began throwing grenades. The smoke was charged with electricity, forcing them away from Luke, and making them used ranged tactics against him. His helmet and Fletcher could pinpoint his targets through the smoke, and Luke saw person after person hit the floor. He knew he wasn't lethal due to what he had learned about auras, but they would definitely wake up sore the next morning. Auras functioned like a natural shield that could absorb much more damage, but took much longer to recharge. It made people a bitch to deal with because he couldn't just shred their organs with rifle rounds anymore.

Then out of nowhere, a screaming and angry ginger came flying through the smoke. Turns out electricity only made her stronger. With one swing of her hammer, she sent Luke out of the smoke and straight into the remaining fighters, scythe, rapier, cane, and shield and spear. The hit took out his shields entirely, and his helmet flashed angry red lights, warning him to get to safety. Before he could even regain his footing and use his jump-pack to stabilize, the scythe came swinging, going clean through his stomach and anchoring him to the nearby wall. Very soon after, a rapier was plunged through his right shoulder. His stomach and a small part of his shoulder were the only places his suit didn't fully cover.

Luke was fully stuck to the wall, with his feel several inches off the floor. He was entirely supported by the gigantic scythe currently keeping him attached to the wall. Thankfully, his suit had managed to get enough shields up so it wouldn't rip, and thus, the scythe wouldn't cut him in half. The suit's rigid shields kept him from sliding down the scythe and ending up like a filet on the floor. Blood leaked from his body as the nanobots struggled to repair the damage, but found their progress blocked by the weapon.

Despite looking the youngest of the bunch, the cane-wielder was the first to respond.

"Students, get back. We must stop him from bleeding out before we can interrogate him about his potential relation to Salem. If he was just an average person, he would have no reason to target Ruby. And if he was a hired thug, he would have no reason to chase her into such a dangerous situation. Ms. Schnee, Ms. Nikos, please go check on the others. I don't believe any of them are severely wounded besides Ms. Rose here, who I would like to receive immediate medical attention."

Shit. He had underestimated how much damage that electric punch had done to her. Several of his shots with the rifle appeared to have gone through her aura and buried themselves into her legs. His helmet's scan revealed them to be non-lethal at the moment, but those rounds could poison the target if they weren't treated for it. Luke had seen the medical treatment on this planet. It was good, but it might not be good enough. Before his helmet could get him any more information, it was removed from his head. Cane stood in front of him, appearing to be slightly distorted. Probably from the blood loss.

"We have medics on the way, just hang tight."

"Remove the scythe, I can heal myself."

"I'm afraid I can't do that. We have too many questions to ask you."

Time to bluff.

"I can kill myself just as easily as I can heal myself. And I don't think any of us want that. Listen, I can answer whatever questions you have, but I really just want dinner."

"Removing that scythe and rapier would cause you to bleed more than you already are, killing you."

"Then fine. Get back."

Luke uselessly flailed his legs towards the young boy, before finally grabbing his last arc-grenade and throwing it at him, knocking him away. The other's heads' snapped up at the sound of the grenade, but then were frozen in shock has he pulled first the rapier, then the scythe from his body and threw them onto the floor. Instantly, his skin and suit sealed over, but the street clothes he had were torn to shreds. He put his discarded helmet back on and walked over to his young target. He only landed one shot on her, and it went into her calf, nothing fatal on it's own. However, the numerous fragments of metal were. It would take maybe a few days, but those pieces of metal from a frag grenade would certainly kill her.

"She's going to die here."

The ivory-haired girl's voice was shrill as she yelled at him.

"No you don't!"

"Yes, I do. Those frag pieces will poison her, and she will die a slow, painful death."

"Then I hope you're happy!"

"No, I'm not. I don't get paid if she dies."

He shrugged and pushed them aside.

"Fletcher, what's time on the transport?"

"It has arrived, and is awaiting your orders."

"Move it to my location. Keep it cloaked if possible."

"Understood."

Luke moved close to the young girl.

"I make it policy not to hurt children. This is the fault of my rashness, and I intend to fix this."

He picked her up and began walking out.

The blonde girl woke up and yelled at him, despite her ribs obviously being sore where she took a full mastiff blast.

"Where do you think you're going, you son of a-"

"Taking her to a proper medical facility where she will be treated and survive."

The cane wielder stepped in front of him. Luke towered over him, but he carried an air of maturity that made the pilot pause.

"I'm afraid we can't let you do that."

"Then come with. I don't care."

The blonde girl spoke up again.

"This is obviously a trap…"

Luke took his rifle off his belt and tossed it to her, before throwing the rest of his weaponry into a pile.

"I hurt an innocent kid, and I intend to fix my mistake."

On cue, the transport arrived.

"You can come or not."

Luke stepped on board, carefully setting the wounded girl onto one of the seats before setting his helmet down on the nearby table as he took an energy bar and wolfed it down. Normally, he would have sent the drones to collect some valuable materials, sold them, and paid for food. But all the drones were working on rebuilding Scorch's titan body on a smaller scale after the large one had blown up one too many times.

All ten other people followed him onto the ship, eyeing him warily.

Their expressions quickly turned from fear and distrust to wonder as the transport broke atmosphere and headed towards _The Fool_.

The straw-haired boy yelled to no one in particular "Are we in space?!"

The fiery haired girl smiled softly and nodded. "Indeed, Jaune. It appears our former enemy has a lot to explain."

Luke stayed silent and meditated.

They arived on _The Fool_ , and Ruby was quickly taken to the science lab by a robot with Fletcher controlling it. The science lab could convert to a medbay, and the young girl was swiftly placed under oxygen while machines scanned and prepared to remove the shrapnel.

"I invite all of you to step out of the medbay in order to keep germs out."

Jaune shook his head.

"She's our friend, we are going to be there for her."

"Let me rephrase. Get out."

With a swift motion, Luke threw them all out and shut the door. They all waited in silence for the next several hours, some getting up to roam or go to the restroom. Eventually, the medbay opened and a very tired Ruby stepped out, wearing a suit quite similar to Luke's. The suit had bots built into it that would finish up internal repairs, and she would be able to take it off once the repairs were done. Immediately following her was a robot, who despite its face never moving, sounded rather flustered.

"I did tell her to stay and rest for a while longer, but she was quite inistant!" Came Fletcher's panicked voice.

"Fletcher, you have full control of this ship. If you wanted to stop her, you would have."

"Yes, but that would have risked her health, and the mental-states of the others… and"

"RUBY!" came the collective cry of the other exhausted people in the room, who ran up to the girl.

Luke's voice cut through the celebration conversation like steel.

"Now that you've got your friend back, a shuttle is waiting to take you back to Haven."

"Wait what?"

"You heard me. Get off my ship. Fletcher will lead the way."

The cane wielder, the voice of the group, addressed Luke.

"This ship is incredible. May we ask where you are from? This is clearly beyond all other forms of technology available to us."

"If you don't get off my ship, Scorch will escort you out."

Everyone heard Scorch's voice reverberating throughout the ship.

" _ **SCORCH ACTIVE. THERMAL LAUNCHER READY. FLAME TRAPS READY. PREPARED FOR COMBAT**_ ".

They left rather quickly after that.

Luke returned to his couch, where he had first started the day.

"I really need to be more careful about that."

"Agreed" came Fletcher's all too cheery voice.


End file.
